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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (5940)	6/13/1998 7:42:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

SB, As much as I dislike Aol and its cult, who happen to have an option to buy 20% of the Motley Fool, there are some good posts on the Internet Amzn MF. Here's one I copied <AngryCandy wrote: By "good article" you mean, of course, you agree with it. Just assume that every sentence I write begins with IMHO. It's obviously NOT a good article because it proved to be dead wrong. What did author say that has proven to be dead wrong? Did you read the article or do you equate Amazon's level of success with the price of AMZN? Consider some quotes from the article: What's more, they'll thereafter get to share in the doubtful fortunes of a money-losing start-up venture that is virtually certain to go bust without a big capital infusion, and may not be able to survive for long even with one. They did need a big capital infusion to survive and it's still arguable that they won't survive for long even with it. This is a deal in which investors are being invited to hand over $13 in cash in order to get back a piece of paper with a book value of a mere $1.34. Investors in AMZN are still delusional. Now AMZN investors are handing over $61 in cash in order to get a piece of paper with a book value of a mere $0.41. And let's also not forget the start-up's 33-year-old boy-wonder chief executive, Jeffrey Bezos, who put $10,000 in seed money into the venture three years ago and will wind up, post-I.P.O., holding 9.9 million shares of stock, which at the I.P.O. price would be worth close to $130 million. Now he's worth a over $1 billion and he still has yet to make a single dime selling books. In fact, the book may not be coming from Amazon--the middleman in the deal--at all, but instead from some wholesaler like Ingram Book Group or Baker & Taylor Inc., Amazon's two main suppliers. This is still true. As I pointed out before, Amazon has ten times the level of sales as last year, but they still buy about 60% of their books from Ingram, just like last year. The bigger Amazon has gotten, the larger its losses have grown. This is still true. As of the quarter ended March 31, 1997, marketing and sales outlays accounted for 25 percent of revenues and are mainly devoted to promoting Amazon as a "brand" name--a tough sell at best since books, by definition, are low-margin, commodity-type products. Still true to this day. 22.3% for Q1 1998 versus 24.2% for Q1 1997. Not much of an improvement. Could you please show me where the author was wrong? I can't figure out what you're talking about. Here's the link again: westergaard.com:8080/Byron/amazon9719.html> Sorry can't transfer the link. I believe its the original Barron's article that convinced the millions to go short the first time.

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (5940)	6/14/1998 8:28:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

ps - let me give you a hint who the net winners are going to be. fed ex, ups and the other shipping companies. surprised? think about it... This is very true. Too bad cannot buy stock in UPS and the US Mail. Glenn

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (5940)	6/14/1998 5:43:00 PM
From: Tom D	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

<<don't take it personal. we disagree.>> You are right, Skeeter Bug, I did read too much of the personal into it. I apologize to you and Bob Buschmann if I got too mean-spirited. But, what the hey? I'm a republican. We're supposed to be mean. I agree that the shippers will be winners. And I wouldn't want to be investing in commercial real estate for the next few years, as the net allows commerce to move out of larger urban areas. Fortunately for BKS, they are smart enough to lease (rather than own) all their bricks and mortar. I agree that by fundamental analysis AMZN is ridiculously overvalued. But as the concept of the "5 year pure internet etailing" investment, it appeals to a lot of people with money. AMZN bears are saying that the street will demand earnings and the valuation will fall from a concept stock back to one based on fundamentals relatively soon. I'm guessing that won't happen for a few years. Tom